


☑ No

by boychik



Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: Gen, Hatred, Pre-Canon, Stomping on Pretty Boys' Hearts, Super High-School Level Literary Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boychik/pseuds/boychik





	☑ No

_Could this day go any slower_ , Fukawa thought, eyes glued to the clock. (She abhorred the clichés, but the environment was prone to them: blackboard and chalk, colorless walls, generic round clock above the door.) The black hands were fat and lazy, disembodied spiders' legs still waiting for their prey—even the skinny second hand was a red wire ticking all too sluggishly in a scholastic imitation of some Chinese water torture, or countdown to the explosion of a bomb. Of course it really wasn't a bomb—too bad, it wouldn't hurt to liven things up around this dull gray school. Yes, it would be exponentially more exciting than listening to some weary old bag of bones drone for hours on end, gesturing tiredly at a motley scrawl of equations on a dusty blackboard as ignorant schoolchildren slept through their lessons. To be fair, it wasn't as though Fukawa was a top student. She mostly used class time to write pieces of her new novel, tentatively titled _In the Tempest of Passion_. Only when she arrived home did she type it all up. She'd come to a rare impasse now, nothing a pithy dialogue between tempestuous characters couldn't solve, but she could only dream of drama for now, and wait and watch the cruel clock...

The last bell finally shrilled through the school, rattling the chalk and bringing something close to relief into Fukawa's heart. She grabbed her bag and was about to stand up when a classmate blocked her way. She looked up at him with a customary stormy scowl, but he was not deterred. He was tall and thin. His dark eyes had the bright gleam of an unintelligent dog. "Fukawa," he began before she could stop him and/or leave, already disturbingly chipper, nothing like the smoky alpha male she'd been writing all day, "Fukawa, I wanted to offer my congratulations!" This was stupid enough, but he went on talking. "I saw in the Hayato Shimbun”—this was their school paper—“that you won the Young Writers Award for this year…I was wondering if you wanted to get some coffee with me and talk about it."

Fukawa just stared at him. Of course I won a writing competition, I'm a writer. Unlike the rest of these sleepy idiots... “Why," she said flatly. 

"No reason," he said. That contradicted what he had just said. What kind of pathological liar was this guy anyway? Trying to take advantage of a young girl for the price of a coffee? She'd never even remembered seeing his face before. "I just thought it might be nice if you and I went out..." Ah, he was blushing now. His ears were red. "W-what do you say?" A stammer. How weak.

"I don't like coffee," she said flatly. 

"Oh well, if you're busy we could try another time..." That's not what I said, dipshit. She just turned away from him, though she had to admit it was sweet in that instant in her periphery to see his face fall. That attempt at interaction could have been a catalyst for a story, but no, he was too bland even for that. Did he even have a name? Fukawa didn't know. A suspicion grew in her heart, lengthening like the shadow cast by a cloud in a dry afternoon.

\---

“Yamashita-kun?! He’s the most popular boy in school! Man, that bitch Fukawa has something wrong with her to reject Yamashita Satoshi..."

"I know, right? He's sooo handsome, I wish he was my boyfriend..."

"Well if she doesn't want him, I'll take him!"

And so followed peals of disgusting laughter. She didn't want to know his name, didn't want to hear them laugh, and least of all listen to them expel her name from their dirty whore tongues. They didn’t even know her and they rattled off insults like it would change something. They didn't even know him and they were talking like that, with no regard to his point of view. How disgusting.

\---

She couldn't go for coffee. The last time she was in a Starbucks she accidentally made eye contact with a stranger. She immediately broke her gaze, but she could feel him undressing her with his eyes, from the moment he ordered a caffe latte to the moment her order of triple espresso shots came and she hightailed it back home to write. She didn't like coffee shops in any case, crawling with jittery sadsacks masquerading as human beings. She just needed the caffeine to pull an all-nighter, so she could finish her draft by the deadline.

"I don't actually hate coffee," she imagined herself saying to Yamashita Satoshi. "I just hate you."

\---

This wasn't the first time Fukawa had rejected a guy. In the third grade, a fluffy-haired boy had not-so-subtly dropped a piece of paper on her desk. In messy lettering, it said: 

Do you like me? 

☐ Yes  
☐ No

Even at the tender age of seven, Fukawa knew the ways of the world inside and out. And this was a cliché. This was reducing her to a stereotype. Such an insulting way to woo a girl! As if she were some brainless cookie-cutter, not even a human being! Any girl could receive this note. With this in mind, she neatly checked the "no" box, folded the paper into neat eighths, and slid it back onto the boy's desk. He had been sharpening and re-sharpening his already pointy pencil in his anxiety, the blades scratching a whirr whirr whirr as peach-colored shavings dropped from the machine, missing the basket and hitting the floor below. Fukawa folded her hands primly and waited. It didn't take long. When the boy returned to his seat and found the note, a strange expression crossed his face. He unfolded it gingerly, as though expecting the paper to shapeshift into a bird and fly away, and read her answer. 

Fukawa, quietly eager, didn't forget to look at his face. And oh, what an expression he made! A shock she’d never seen before. Yet it was too easy. She laughed the whole way home that day. It was too funny to hold it in. The sky was blue, and her heart soared. She couldn’t remember being that happy before.

\---

She was at her locker when she heard two boys talking around the corner.

“This wasn’t even the first time, you know what I’m saying, man?” Not waiting for a response, the voice continued. “It took me a long time to work up my confidence after that…”

“Years,” his friend observed. “It was a really long time.”

“Well,” the boy continued, miffed, “I liked her for a long time, too. Since elementary school.”

“Most girls are more mature by now. Guess she never grew out of that phase…you know what I mean, those girls who are like _me me me_ all the time…”

Fukawa took a breath and stepped around the corner. “I don’t hate coffee,” she said. “I just hate—” _You._ But it wasn’t true, was it. Better yet was to speak the truth: “Everyone!” And again that magnificent sense of freedom bubbled up inside her, filling her throat and forcing her lips into a smile.

Yamashita was just standing there speechless as she walked away for the third time.

“Some people,” said Yamashita’s friend, shaking his head and slapping a hand over Yamashita’s back. “But I wouldn’t worry, man. She’s kinda weird, but it’s all talk, it doesn’t mean anything. You’ll get over it, bro. You’ll be fine.” One last cliché to make Fukawa roll her eyes back in her head: “There’s other fish in the sea, man.” And one last lie to make her roll her tongue in delight: “She’s harmless, man, I swear to God. I know how these things go.”


End file.
